OCS alternative forms and spellings
"Yes the scrips could be handled in the inflection line, and that's probably the best solution, but that will not work in case where there is more than 2 scripts used for a language."
Japanese manages to show three scripts on the inflection line without any issue. Are there any languages that use more than three scripts? Thryduulf (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Sanskrit is written in almost all Indic scripts, although we currently only use Devanagari. Perhaps it works for Japanese, but I don't think that handling 2+ additional scripts would work in the inflection line in alphabetic languages with rich inflection some of which would have to be listed in the inflection line too. The whole line would be too long. Serbo-Croatian has historically been written in 2 other scripts beside Cyrillic and Latin: Glagolitic and alphabetic form of Arabic script. There is no way that these 4 would all fit in the inflection line beside the usual information listed. There is the preliminary template {{sh-variant}} to handle this, based on the successful usage of {{fa-regional}} for Persian variant forms, but it's not used yet. Template-based table approach seems to me superior than either of those two alternatives.
I don't really see why all the inflections would need to be shown - surely just the headword. All the inflections in the alternative scripts would be shown on the entry for the headword in that script. e.g. (picking an OCS verb at random) ⰉⰕⰉ (ITI, “to go”) would contain a link to the Cyrillic spelling of the headword (ити (iti)) and all the inflections in the Glagalotic script. ити (iti) would contain a link to the Glagalotic script headword, and all the inflections in the Cyrillic script.
If you arrived at ⰉⰕⰉ (ITI) and wanted to know the second person plural present tense you'd find the Glagalotic on that page, and could then either follow the Cyrillic headword or go to the Glagalotic entry for the particular verb form, which would display the Cyrillic version of the headword.
If you don't think that these should be in "Alternative forms" with the same simple label as they are now (e.g. Cyrillic: ити (iti)) then perhaps we should think about having an "Alternative script" header (which is clearly differentiated from "Alternative forms" and offers no chance of confusion with it)?
Anyway, this conversation should probably be happening on the Beer parlour or Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2010-07/Alternative forms header, but I've got no idea how to easily move, copy or summarise a liquid threads discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 10:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)